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Sunday, February 29, 2004 |
Practical Common Lisp. Very cool Lisp book in progress.
QUOTE This
page, and the pages linked to by it, contains the work-in-progress of
Practical Common Lisp which will be published by Apress some time next
year (2004). I'm putting this on the web in order to allow folks to
give me feedback while there's still a chance for me to do something
about it. Please keep in mind, however, that this is not a finished
book. I will add some indication on this page as particular chapters
reach various stages of completion—you may want to wait until chapters
are marked as ready for various kinds of review before spending too
much time with them. Or dive right in now if you really want. The table
of contents links below will take you to pages that show how many words
I have written vs what I estimate I will eventually write on a chapter
by chapter, section by section, and even paragraph by paragraph basis.
(No, I didn't really estimate each paragraph separately--they are
either already written or assumed to be of average length based on the
already written paragraphs. The higher level estimates are worked out
from there using, of course, a Lisp program.) At any rate, please
direct comments/flames/suggestions to book@gigamonkeys.com. UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao's Weblog] 
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Applied Decentralization: A large-scale social system for HLS. It's
been a few months since I've posted - a very busy and exciting time
here at Groove. Both in terms of what's been happening in the business
and market, but also because we're closing in on the first beta of
Groove V3. I can't wait to tell you about the improvements in V3 ...
because after having used it day in and day out for a few months now,
I've simply never felt nearly this excited about a product that I've worked on. And that says a lot. More on V3 in a few weeks!
For those of you who have been following Groove for quite some time,
you may recall that the product's original raison d'être was to enable
people "at the edge" to dynamically assemble online into secure virtual
workspaces, to work together and to get something done, even if those
individuals were in different organizations with completely different
IT infrastructure.
Today, with the gracious permission of one of our most significant
customers, Groove made an announcement that I'd like to talk about for
a moment. It's very significant to me for two reasons: First, the
nature of how Groove is being used in this solution demonstrates to the extreme
the very reason why Groove was built the way it was, from a technology
and architecture perspective. Decentralization at its finest. The
customer's core challenge was to enable individuals from many, many
different organizations - most of whom had little or no opportunity for
training - to rapidly assemble into small virtual teams to selectively
share information, make decisions, get the job done, and disassemble.
The individuals are geographically dispersed. They use different kinds
of networks, behind different organizations' firewalls and management
policies. They are very, very highly mobile. And there are few
applications where the requirement for deep and effective security is
more self-evident.
Groove's press release can be found here.
The Department of Homeland Security's press releases related to HSIN can be found here and here, while Secretary Ridge's remarks are here.
Why was a decentralized architecture for this network so
fundamentally important, and thus why was Groove uniquely suited for
the task? This brings me to the second reason that I'm tremendously
pleased to have had the opportunity to contribute to solving this
problem. Larry Lessig taught us that in software-based systems in cyberspace, the code
can define outcomes - inadvertently or intentionally - that might have
an impact on society. Or better stated in this case, the system's core
architectural design principles have a real impact not only on the
system's mission effectiveness, but also in how it might effectively
preserve and protect rights.
To understand these issues more deeply, one need look no further than the eloquent work released this past December by the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age, called "Creating a Trusted Network for Homeland Security".
If you're interested in the "why" of decentralization, read the
report. Look at the members of the task force. And take particular note
of their proposed SHARE network and its architecture. (Interestingly,
Richard Eckel wrote about it in his blog before he became aware of the details of Groove's involvement with HSIN.)
Lots of stuff here to read, but it's truly fascinating if you are
interested in understanding how decentralization and peer-to-peer
technology is having a real impact on government and society.
Although so, so many people are involved in this project because of
its scope, in particular I'd like to recognize Col. Tom Marenic, Pat
Duecy, Ed Manavian, and especially our partner Mike Kushin of
ManTech/IDS. My sincere thanks for your leadership, your passion about
the mission, and your appreciation for organizational dynamics, social
dynamics, technology and architecture in assembling a large and
empirically effective system for purposeful social interaction. [Ray Ozzie's Weblog]
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I used to be famous.  [Scripting News]
Back in the late 80's and early 90's - I used to be famous.
Since I left Macromedia in 1991 - I have been investing in and
building what I believe in - which turns out to be something called "digital lifestyle aggregators".
And now it looks like the rest of the world has caught up to me. I
have developed this uncanny knack of clearly seeing what baby steps are
necessary to 'boil this ocean' and I'm hoping that by building alliances, deals and incestuos relationships I can bring a rebirth to my company - Broadband Mechanics - in 2004.
Laszlo is shipping the rich media platform - we were working on for years, while Tribe
has shown what coolio social networks can be like, and a business model
which can anchor a federated social network. Tony Perkin's AlwaysOn Network
is proving that social networking is just a raising of the bar - and
that it effects ALL markets, while the system I just designed for XXXX (can't disclose yet!) will finally show the world what digital lifestyle aggregation is all about.
This is all a culmination of what I've been working towards for 13
years. And if you think about it - the timing is just perfect - right
about.......... now. No I mean....... now. Now.
Well - whenever it comes, we're not too far off right now - if you just combine:
- PeopleAggregator, WebOutliner
- MediaChest, Flickr, Orkut, Tribe, Ryze, Yafro, Fotonotes, Fotolog, ODDpost,
- W4, blogrolling, technorati, Internet Topic Exchange, AlwaysOn Network Zaibatsu
- RVW, ENT 1.0, OPML, XML-RPC, RSS
- UpComing, ecto, FOAF-a-matic, Laszlo's SoundBlox
- TypePad, Blogware,
- Windows Longhorn, Apple's iLife
- Yahoo Groups, MyYahoo, Yahoo Mail and Launch (or yah - don't forget GeoCities)
Hopefully all of these web servcies, tools and systems will
inter-connect together - to provide us with the future we all deserve
and need.
This time around it's got to be based upon an open, decentralized, semantic, service oriented, fun world. [Marc's Voice]
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Max Boot
asks: "Isn't it about time we got serious about dealing with failed
states? If we did, we would have to devise both national and
international remedies." He's right. Haiti fell due to pressure from some ~200 rebels using basic
techniques. The number of states that are vulnerable to such a small
amount of pressure is quite large. If advanced techniques are used
(part of my book), almost every country except the advanced democracies
(those states that are complex enough to have enduring legitimacy) are
at risk. The time to think this through is now.
[John Robb's Weblog]
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Slate: "Meet BitTorrent, the file-sharing network that makes trading movies a breeze." [Scripting News]
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What's the Context?. Legal Services + Social Networking.... Posted Feb 27, 2004, 12:17 PM ET by Judith Meskill
Demir Barlas writes that Miller & Chevalier, a Washington, D.C.
law firm, has installed Interface Software’s Social Networking system
to connect their ~120 lawyers and professionals. Not likely bedfellows
but the utilization of Interface’s solution has, according to Sturgis
Sobin, chairman of the international department of Miller &
Chevalier, created new business: “In the past year, we’ve had a couple
of instances where the software identified an existing relationship
we’d never have been aware of otherwise,” says Sobin. “One of those
engagements generated more than a million dollars in new business.” A
most practical application of Social Networking Services [The Social Software Weblog]
Marc's bit....
Yet another example of social networking as a feature, not a stand
alone market. Maybe eventually hopefully like soon enough some day
folks will stop trying to ask "how do you make money from social
networking" and instead will say "what can I use social networking for?"
In other words - as danah likes to say - What's the Context? [Marc's Voice]
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Laszlo Mugs. Laszlo Mugs.
Laszlo Mugs
We recently wrapped up version 2.0 of the Laszlo Presentation
Server. In celebration of the new components, I opened a couple of Cafe Press
stores to special-order some custom Laszlo schwag. It was a fun excuse
to check out Cafe Press. Its an amazing business where you can create
your own T-shirts, mugs or whatever with custom graphics. The site is
very easy to use and I highly recommend it.
So... the stores are open and mugs are sold at cost. I'm posting links here for Laszlovians, Laszlo developers and other fans.
available at http://www.cafeshops.com/laszlofanclub [Sarah Allen's Weblog]
[Marc's Voice]
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Microsoft's Aura Project in eWeek. Steve Gillmor, in eWeek: The New Mouse: Microsoft's Aura Project and Personal Data
"Microsoft's Aura research project uses a cell phone equipped with a
bar-code reader to capture and annotate user interactions with the
physical world. These events produce what Smith calls "the inscription
revolution: the ability for things you're doing to leave metadata
behind." When you flip through a print magazine, the pages you read are
not recorded. But in the world of Google, blogs, e-mail and IM,
identity is the collection of places you go, and what you write is the
evidence you leave behind." [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
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Windows Media news. Sean Alexander has some goodies on his blog this week. First are some ScoobyDoo animations
for the Windows Digital Media Plus Pack. I met the team that did these
animations. Really talented people. They did tons of motion capture on
real actors doing things like break dancing. Then turned them into the
animations you can download for free.
Second thing is that the steering committe for the DVD Forum has announced provisional
approval of Windows Media Video 9 Series technology as mandatory for
the upcoming HD-DVD video format along with two other formats. [Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]
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Practical Common Lisp. Very cool Lisp book in progress.
QUOTE This
page, and the pages linked to by it, contains the work-in-progress of
Practical Common Lisp which will be published by Apress some time next
year (2004). I'm putting this on the web in order to allow folks to
give me feedback while there's still a chance for me to do something
about it. Please keep in mind, however, that this is not a finished
book. I will add some indication on this page as particular chapters
reach various stages of completion—you may want to wait until chapters
are marked as ready for various kinds of review before spending too
much time with them. Or dive right in now if you really want. The table
of contents links below will take you to pages that show how many words
I have written vs what I estimate I will eventually write on a chapter
by chapter, section by section, and even paragraph by paragraph basis.
(No, I didn't really estimate each paragraph separately--they are
either already written or assumed to be of average length based on the
already written paragraphs. The higher level estimates are worked out
from there using, of course, a Lisp program.) At any rate, please
direct comments/flames/suggestions to book@gigamonkeys.com. UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao's Weblog]
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Applied Decentralization: A large-scale social system for HLS. It's
been a few months since I've posted - a very busy and exciting time
here at Groove. Both in terms of what's been happening in the business
and market, but also because we're closing in on the first beta of
Groove V3. I can't wait to tell you about the improvements in V3 ...
because after having used it day in and day out for a few months now,
I've simply never felt nearly this excited about a product that I've worked on. And that says a lot. More on V3 in a few weeks!
For those of you who have been following Groove for quite some time,
you may recall that the product's original raison d'être was to enable
people "at the edge" to dynamically assemble online into secure virtual
workspaces, to work together and to get something done, even if those
individuals were in different organizations with completely different
IT infrastructure.
Today, with the gracious permission of one of our most significant
customers, Groove made an announcement that I'd like to talk about for
a moment. It's very significant to me for two reasons: First, the
nature of how Groove is being used in this solution demonstrates to the extreme
the very reason why Groove was built the way it was, from a technology
and architecture perspective. Decentralization at its finest. The
customer's core challenge was to enable individuals from many, many
different organizations - most of whom had little or no opportunity for
training - to rapidly assemble into small virtual teams to selectively
share information, make decisions, get the job done, and disassemble.
The individuals are geographically dispersed. They use different kinds
of networks, behind different organizations' firewalls and management
policies. They are very, very highly mobile. And there are few
applications where the requirement for deep and effective security is
more self-evident.
Groove's press release can be found here.
The Department of Homeland Security's press releases related to HSIN can be found here and here, while Secretary Ridge's remarks are here.
Why was a decentralized architecture for this network so
fundamentally important, and thus why was Groove uniquely suited for
the task? This brings me to the second reason that I'm tremendously
pleased to have had the opportunity to contribute to solving this
problem. Larry Lessig taught us that in software-based systems in cyberspace, the code
can define outcomes - inadvertently or intentionally - that might have
an impact on society. Or better stated in this case, the system's core
architectural design principles have a real impact not only on the
system's mission effectiveness, but also in how it might effectively
preserve and protect rights.
To understand these issues more deeply, one need look no further than the eloquent work released this past December by the Markle Foundation Task Force on National Security in the Information Age, called "Creating a Trusted Network for Homeland Security".
If you're interested in the "why" of decentralization, read the
report. Look at the members of the task force. And take particular note
of their proposed SHARE network and its architecture. (Interestingly,
Richard Eckel wrote about it in his blog before he became aware of the details of Groove's involvement with HSIN.)
Lots of stuff here to read, but it's truly fascinating if you are
interested in understanding how decentralization and peer-to-peer
technology is having a real impact on government and society.
Although so, so many people are involved in this project because of
its scope, in particular I'd like to recognize Col. Tom Marenic, Pat
Duecy, Ed Manavian, and especially our partner Mike Kushin of
ManTech/IDS. My sincere thanks for your leadership, your passion about
the mission, and your appreciation for organizational dynamics, social
dynamics, technology and architecture in assembling a large and
empirically effective system for purposeful social interaction. [Ray Ozzie's Weblog]
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Skype may be the airlines and aircraft while POTS remains the train tracks and trains..
Stuart nails yet another great Skype post! Whether Skype succeeds or
not, it is on to something. Awesome voice quality on the desktop that
can be easily coupled to the rest of your apps in a way that you could
never do with plain old telephone service. It's not just about
replacing voice for cheap or free. It's about the unintended
consequences of being able to provide high quality voice and voice
presence to all apps.
From Supersonic Skype:
QUOTE Much of the debate around
Skype focuses on the telephone industry rather than seeing something
new. Skype may be the airlines and aircraft while POTS remains the
train tracks and trains.
I also believe there are a number of lessons from presence to mobility
that "old style" telecom providers fail to understand or aren't
actively pursuing. Most of the marketing I see remains phone centric
rather than about communications. The type of new and emerging
functionality that people includes things like can I handle my voice
mail while on a plane? Of course you can, just most people have yet to
experience it. Similarly in a car. Concurrently I've been more
interested in the opportunity for new information markets around Skype
type functionality. The future of call waiting, caller id etc. Even
0900 style numbers provide opportunities. No much is new here. Just the
opportunity to tie it into computing applications and the big screen.
Skype's biggest risk and challenge may just be the exchange on the
desktop that just accesses the lowest cost solution whereever I am
using the highest quality sound. UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao's Weblog]
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SharpReader 0.9.4.0.
SharpReader 0.9.4.0 is now available at sharpreader.net. Changes since
the last version are: Basic Atom support. Fixed bug that lost all items
in a feed if its contents contained illegal xml characters like .
Recovery of any previously lost items because of the above bug. These
items will reappear when upgrading to this version. Keep item-comments
when an item is... (226 words) [Luke Hutteman's public virtual MemoryStream]
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Off-shoring" Manifesto/Rant: Sixteen Hard Truths - Tom Peters. Read the whole thing!
Here are my favourites:
QUOTE 1. "Off-shoring" will continue; the tide cannot be reversed.
2. Service jobs are a bigger issue than manufacturing jobs, by an order of magnitude.
...
15. Broadband EVERYWHERE is a National Priority ... akin to the priority placed on combating Global Terrorism.
16. All economic progression is a matter of moving up the "value-added
chain." (This is not "management speak": Think farm to factory to
R&D lab.) The good news: Technology change is so vigorous for the
foreseeable future that those who can "seize the moment" have lots of
room to play.
17. Worker benefits (health care, re-training credits, pensions) should
be portable, to induce rather than impede labor mobility.
18. Workers have the ultimate stake. And thus the ultimate personal
responsibility. (Think: Emerson, self-reliance.) "Workers"/we/all must
"re-imagine" ourselves -- take the initiative to create useful global
skills, not imagine that large employers or powerful nations will
protect us from the current (and future!) labor market upheavals. UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao's Weblog]
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Jim Moore's Blogging Vision - focus on users and evangelism.
Yes! Exactly what I think - The technical part is done for now, let's
focus on making it 300% less technical and 1000% easier to use.
Make
it easier for non techies and non power users to blog and teach them
how and preach the benefits. Blogging can and will cross the chasm.
QUOTE As Geoffrey Moore (no relation, except in management thought lineage)
emphasizes, products and industries often must change as they seek to
“cross the chasm” from selling to early adopters to becoming part of
the daily life of mainstream users.
I'd like to see millions more bloggers.
From my vantage point, blogging is facing its chasm. Despite strong
absolute numbers and growth rates, our total share penetration of the
computer and Internet world is tiny. For example, when I tried to find
Iowa bloggers to put into BloggerStorm and Iowa Caucus News, I could
only locate a few handfuls. I was in Microdesign yesterday—this is the
big computer store near MIT—and there is no shrinkwrapped software that
even references blogging, with the exception of Microsoft Frontpage,
which does so deceptively in relation to Sharepoint.
I would like to see an all out effort to make the use of blogging
software mainstream. With that in mind, here are my candidates for new
developments:
UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao's Weblog]
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RSS is a success because it allows individuals to scan, filter and pass forward. Great rebuttal by Stephen Downes to RSS: A Big Success In Danger of Failure, by Bill Burnham.
QUOTE I have argued elswhere that
the only way to aproach content location on the internet is to treat it
as a self-organizing network. What this means is that inherent in the
structure of the internet there are distinct layers of filtering
mechanisms, each consisting of a "gather filter forward" mechanism. In
some cases, the mechanism is fulfilled by a human agent, as in the case
of blogs. In others, it is fulfilled by automatic mechanisms, such as
Edu_RSS. And it is likely that Robin Good's newsmasters will in their
own way also play the same role.
What's important here is that each node of each layer need not worry
about the rest, and need not be focused on the goal of the system. The
agent seeks what is available, the way a retinal cell gathers light,
and passes on what is relevant, the way a neuron passes on a signal.
The filtering occurs not in the individual node, but through the
independent actions of the aggregation of nodes.
The reason why this system works, while other approaches do not, is
that there is no reasonable mechanism which can apply the vast
requirements of filtering on a single resource. If we use metadata, the
indexing soon outweighs the content. If we use search engines, each
resource must be subject to extensive analysis to determine context
(or, we do without context, which results in a search for 'calf'
linking to sites on agriculture an anatomy).
The layered mechanism works because at no point is the entire weight of
the filtering process concentrated in a single individual or a single
resource. Decisions about selection and classification are made on a
case by case basis using very coarse, and unregulated, mechanisms. It
means that individual agents can work without the need for central
control, with the only requirement for a functional system being an
open set of connections between the agents.
RSS is, today, the transport mechanism of choice. There is nothing
magical about RSS, except for the fact that it just is an autonomous
agent system providing a high degree of connectivity. As tye system
matures, additional encoding systems, such as FOAF, say, or ODRL, will
play their own important roles, offering different kinds of connections
within the same network. The decisions make will become richer, without
a corresponding increase in the complexity of the system.
So, RSS could succeed. It will probably succeed. But it is important to
keep our focus on what it does well: it allows an individual to scan,
filter, and pass forward. That's all it ever has to do. The network
will do the rest. UNQUOTE [Roland Tanglao's Weblog]
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AMD Chips, MS Code To Block Viruses. Advanced Micro Devices said Wednesday that buffer-overrun technology included in its 64-bit processors will help with the upcoming Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 to help defeat malicious code. [Extremetech]
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Deciding on platforms and buying a PowerBook.
As I start doing software development for Software Garden, the question
comes up about which platform should I develop for. This posting
discusses that. I also describe how I bow to all my friends and others
important to me who use Apple Macs and buy a PowerBook to ensure that
whatever I do is appropriately compatible. [Dan Bricklin's Log]
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Are You Accelerated?.
Microsoft's decided that its "Office Solution Accelerators" are just
too good to reserve for its Software Assurance customers only. So
Redmond is now allowing any and all customers to avail themselves of
its blueprints designed around its Office System products. And it's
promising lots more accelerators for next year. [Microsoft Watch from Mary Jo Foley]
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The 1060 REST microkernel and XML app server. 1060 NetKernel
Suhail Ahmed alerted me, via email, to a really interesting project called NetKernel, from 1060 Research. The docs describe it as "a commercial open-source realisation of the HP Dexter project." Here's the skinny:
Today's Web-servers and Application Servers have a relatively flat
interface which creates a hard boundary between Web and non-Web. This
boundary defines the zone of URI addressable resources.
What if the REST interface (URI address space) didn't end at the edge of your external interface?
NetKernel uses REST-like service interfaces for all software
components. The services are fully encapsulated in modules which export
a public URI address space. A module may import other module's address
spaces, in this way service libraries may be combined into
applications. [NetKernel Essentials]
What if, indeed? I downloaded the 20MB NetKernel JAR file, installed
the system, and took it for a spin. Fascinating concept. As advertised,
it offers a suite of XML services -- including XSLT, and the Saxon
implementation of XQuery -- in a composable architecture based on URIs.
These include the familiar http: and file: plus NetKernel's own active:
which is a URI scheme for NetKernel processes scheduled by the "REST
microkernel." ... [Jon's Radio]
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Amy Kim starts to speak up. Taking it to the Steets (AJ Kim). 
February 26, 2004
Taking it to the Steets
Multiplayer gaming IS social software — and a fascinating development in this genre is the emergence of location-based cellphone games like BotFighters (the grandaddy of the genre, launched in 2001) and Undercover
(launched in 2003). In these games, cellphone-toting urban warriors
take to the streets of their city to search for clues, complete
missions, and engage in battle (and conversation) with their fellow
players. Each game overlays a virtual ‘gaming grid’ onto the physical
layout of the city, and tracks the players’ location within that grid
using the built-in GPS of their cellphones.
 This genre is starting to mature — as evidenced by hybrid lifeforms that are emerging. My current favorite is Mogi, Item Hunt,
a Tokyo-based game where the core game mechanic is collecting and
trading (rather than fighting). Using a live map (shown at right) as a
guide, players move through the streets and ‘pick up’ virtual items
with their cellphone interface. The goal is to amass points by
completing collections — and in addition to collecting items on the
streets, players can trade items amongst themselves to complete their
collections. Mogi also includes a buddy-based messaging service, and a
mechanism for messaging any player who’s online using the gaming grid.
For a user-centric glimpse into what makes this game so compelling,
check out this blog post from a Mogi player.
 Mogi
also includes a full-featured Web-based game interface (shown at left)
— which means that logged-in players can communicate and trade objects
seemlessly, regardless of whether they’re using a cellphone or
computer. THIS ROCKS — I’m thrilled to see
smart, creative developers experimenting with trans-device gaming
experiences, which I think will be huge. If you know of other
entertainment experiences that offer cellphone & web-based
interfaces to the same data set, I’d love to hear about ‘em.
(psst — here’s a little secret I discovered: if you want to check out Mogi’s web-based interface, type in ‘test’ for your username & password and have at it :-)
Posted by Amy at 3:29 PM [ Many-to-Many] [Marc's Voice]
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enhancedAggregator. Marc Barrot has been busy....
Introducing the enhancedAggregator.
 I've
recently spent some time investigating Radio's aggregator code, looking
for an easy way to support additional RSS modules in general, and ENT
1.0 topics in particular.
The enhancedAggregator tool is the -provisional- result of this investigation. It comes with full ENT 1.0 topics support for Radio's aggregator, and skeletons for aggregating Atom 0.3 feeds and ESF 1.0 events for RSS 2.0.
I'd like the enhancedAggregator to become a community driven
project, allowing Frontier/Radio developers to easily test aggregation
of new syndication formats and extensions, without mobilizing Userland
scarse resources.
So I've added some intial/uninstall/update/prefs ancillary functions to the tool, and provided guidelines for updating the current drivers and adding new ones, with pointers to the available online documentation. I hope Matt will copy the ENT module driver and paste it into the k-collector client for Radio, and Paolo's eVector crew will build upon the ESF module driver skeleton, copying the result to their new tool when it's stable enough.
[s l a m] [Marc's Voice]
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Dual-license models. MySQL Profits From Open Source.
Linux is still the most famous open-source app, but database software
using the same model is getting some play. MySQL is giving established
software firms a run for their money. By Joanna Glasner. [Wired News]
MySQL is one of the products that helped me get my "Ah hah!" about open source software.
They are a commercial software vendor - which sells over $10M a year
of software - while 'portending' to be an open soruce player. Yet their
commercial license is as commercial as anybody elses - albeit allot
cheaper.
But they also offer the code free to non-commercial users and that's the trick - dual-licenses.
Laszlo Systems also has a
policy like that. Non-commercial developers can download the Laszlo LPS
and do what their heart leads them to. Laszlo also has a cheapie
'express' version as well. [Marc's Voice]
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How Does the Platform Affect Game Style?. Glenn Broadway of iomo will be running a roundtable discussion at GDC, and wanted to get some advance ideas on the topic. He writes:
To
what extent does the platform affect the content of a game? Why don't
we see point-and-clicks or flight sims on consoles, or fighting games
on PCs?
As new platforms such as mobile phones and iTV arrive do
developers need to fully appreciate the factors that magnetise certain
genres to platforms?
Anyone working in these new arenas should
be acutely aware of the technical constraints placed upon them (who
could fail to notice a 64Kb limit?) and these will certainly influence
the types of games that get developed, but there are other factors to
consider. The social habits of people playing mobile games can have a
dramatic effect on the success of a particular product, and in this new
age of online gaming (there's never been a more 'connected' platform
than the cell phone).
It is an interesting point;
there's certainly a considerable different between console and PC
games, and it's not entirely due to the fact that PC gamers tend to be
older. Fighting games are a good example; the core mechanic (to borrow
Eric Z's term, which I'll argue about another time) is learning the
'chords' to perform special moves, something that makes perfect sense
in the context of a console controller and a lot less sense on a
keyboard--why would you even use chords when you've got so many keys?
And, of course, PCs are inherently single-user devices, while fighting
games are much more fun played by two people rather than solo.
Contrariwise,
there are many game styles that work fine on PCs that don't on
consoles: strategy games, for instance, typically require you to manage
units/production centers across a broad geographic area, more than can
be displayed on the screen at once. The usual solution is a radar view
coupled with fast scrolling of the main view when the pointer is near
one side of the view--easy to do with a mouse, but much more awkward
with a console controller. Anyone who's played the PS version of Command & Conquer
can tell you that it sucks by comparison with the PC version. FPS games
are another example; why they've been successful on consoles (e.g.,
Halo), hardcore players generally prefer the PC version, because
keyboard-plus-mouselook allows better control of the view and movement
than the twin-joystick approach. According to Scott Miller, a Halo
player on a PC playing against a Halo player on an XBox will, all
things being equal, trounce the XBox player--I wouldn't know from
personal experience, but it sounds plausible.
When we move to
mobile phones, beyond the obvious problems of limited RAM and small
screen, the limitation I find most constraining--and one of the key
issues I try to design around--is the inability to detect simultaneous
key presses. Not only is chording infeasible, but you can't move and
shoot at the same time, a key component of so many game styles. On the
market, the mobile games that do best seem to be quite light and aimed
at a more general audience--things like Lemonade Tycoon, Trophy
Hunting, and simple platformers. Of course, it's probably still too
early to generalize about mobile games, but we are dealing with an
interface that's more like a console than a PC--a directional pad plus
a bunch of buttons--and a market that's more like the Uproar/Pogo
demographic than the PC/console world (very broad audience looking for
quick game fixes, older, but not as heavily female as with Uproar and
Pogo).
[Games * Design * Art * Culture]
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What everyone
is missing about massage therapy as the job of the future is: you can't
export the output of the work done. When you are not globally
competitive, inward (some would say navel gazing) dynamism won't
correct the situation. We need an outward focus. [John Robb's Weblog]
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Virginia
defends her article about the new trend towards part-time work and
self-employment. She calls them "good" jobs. What she forgets is that
these jobs don't have health care. They are gray economy (which often
don't pay taxes). They are mercurial in that they don't always produce
income. Pensions are non-existant. The list goes on. Hey, I love the Austrian economists. The creation and destruction of jobs is a fantastic thing. Schumpeter
was on track when he coined the term: "creative destruction." However,
dynamism in this case is falling short. It is reallocating jobs in an
atmosphere of declining global competitiveness as our ~$500 b (and
increasing rapidly) trade deficit and falling income levels attest to.
The question for me (and hopefully many of you): why is American
dynamism/creative destruction falling short? Is it just the only
strength of the dollar that makes us uncompetitive or is it something
more? Fanaticism in support of concepts like dynamism isn't useful.
Dynamism will not cure all ills. Is there something at work here that
we can correct? Think! [John Robb's Weblog]
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More debate
on the future of Saudi Oil production. The Saudis say they can maintain
current production through the decade (despite the need that they
double output in the next decade to keep up with global demand). Other
experts think that their production will fall -- which confirms
Hubbert's peak. This is going to be a big, big issue over the next
decade. Lots of dislocation as 2.5 b people arrive in the developed
world and find that oil is too expensive to buy. Of course, falling
production is good at controlling global warming. Which, given this Pentagon report (full PDF of the controlled report) on "climate wars" is a good thing. [John Robb's Weblog]
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Orson Scott Card's disgraceful anti-gay-marriage editorial. Orson Scott Card, whose notorious Hypocrites of Homosexuality
revealed his revolting anti-gay side, has published a new broadside
against gay marriages that dresses up homophobia with more sophistry.
How shameful.
The dark secret of homosexual society
-- the one that dares not speak its name -- is how many homosexuals
first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or
molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the
homosexual community and live normally.
It's that desire for normality, that discontent with perpetual
adolescent sexuality, that is at least partly behind this hunger for
homosexual "marriage."
Link
(Thanks, Frank) [Boing Boing Blog]
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Low-cost, DRM-free audiobooks, to make an audio Gutenberg Project.
TellTale Weekly is a new audiobook service selling low-cost (<$1)
audiobooks as DRM-free MP3s and Oggs -- and building an audiobook
version of the Gutenberg Project by releasing all their titles under a
Creative Commons license after 5 years or 100,000 paid downloads,
whichever comes first. There aren't many tracks up there yet, but as a
certified audiobook addict, this is as exciting an idea as I've heard
in a long, long time.
Link
(via Hammersley) [Boing Boing Blog]
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© Copyright 2004 William J. Maya.
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My good friend Scott Mize is offering a great deal on his 2nd Edition 
